St Nicholas Church

A wooden log structure with a dome, bell tower, and carved window surrounds stands in Krestovaya Pad. It was intended to be of stone, but the brick masonry did not hold, and the builders chose wood while preserving the appearance of a stone church. The consecration took place at Nikolskaya Pier, at the source of the Angara River, in eighteen forty-four; later the church ended up in Listvennichnoye, present-day Listvyanka. The board cladding, window surrounds, and octagonal tier shifted eastward appeared only in its later form.

In the autumn of nineteen fifty-six, construction engineer Tatiana Evfratova led the relocation of this church. She was assisted by Fedot Onufrazh, the oldest parishioner and a trustee who pressed to keep an active parish in Listvyanka.

Before that, the church had stood right beside Lake Baikal for more than a hundred years. After the construction of the Irkutsk Hydroelectric Power Station, rising water was expected, and a highway was planned along the shore. The church plot fell within the flooding and roadwork zone; the parish's complete closure was discussed.

For local believers, this meant losing a building they had already regained once. The church was closed in nineteen thirty-eight, and it then housed a club, fish warehouses, and workshops. In nineteen forty-five, elderly residents of Listvyanka obtained permission to hold services, cleared the premises, and reassembled the congregation. The parish remained poor: at times, there was barely enough money for heating and for supporting the priest.

Evfratova and the parishioners dismantled the wooden building and reassembled it in Krestovaya Pad, on the present site. The diocesan fund covered most of the expenses. By autumn, the church stood in its new place, and on Christmas Eve a liturgy was already being celebrated there.

The church could be dismantled because of a decision made a century before Evfratova. Parish tradition links the church's appearance to the Irkutsk merchant and industrialist Ksenofont Mikhailovich Sibiryakov. During a shipwreck on Lake Baikal, according to this account, he prayed to St Nicholas—the Bishop of Myra in Lycia, whom Christians revere as the patron of seafarers—and promised to build a church in his honor if he survived. That is where its name comes from.

Sibiryakov managed to begin the work but died of consumption that progressed rapidly before the church was ready. His widow, Natalya Dmitrievna Sibiryakova, continued the construction, fulfilling her husband's promise. At first, the church was intended to be of stone. When five rows of brick had been laid above the foundation, it became clear that the mortar would not hold the masonry. The brickwork was dismantled, and a wooden building resembling a stone one in appearance was erected. It was consecrated in eighteen forty-four at Nikolskaya Pier, at the source of the Angara River, and five years later moved to the then village of Listvennichnoye, present-day Listvyanka.

The relocation of nineteen fifty-six changed the structure: the dome and bell tower were rebuilt, the broad octagonal tier was shifted eastward, and later the walls were clad in boards and carved window surrounds were added. So, before you in Krestovaya Pad stands a nineteenth-century building in the form given to it by Evfratova and the parishioners after the second relocation. This is the third address of St Nicholas Church; services are still held here.